Chips off old block: Ex-Broadcom workers form MaxLinear

At Broadcom, Mike LaChance saw the transformation from small semiconductor company to worldwide chip powerhouse and, truth be told, he enjoyed his time more when it was smaller.

When LaChance joined the company in 1998, it hadn't debuted on the stock market yet, employed just 411 people and had $216.7 million in revenue. When he left more than 10 years later, it had nearly 7,500 employees and revenue of almost $4.5 billion. Now he's among a group of former Broadcom employees taking a risk with MaxLinear, a chip company smaller than Broadcom was when he started, based in Carlsbad with a growing design center in Irvine.

With 254 employees, the company designs receiver chips to capture and process digital and analog signals and fights behemoths like Irvine-based Broadcom and San Diego-based Qualcomm for employees, offering as incentives stock options and a place where workers are able to get a breadth of experience.

"If I compared the first five years at Broadcom with my last five, I enjoyed the first five a lot more. ... (Broadcom) is a great company, but it really changes the culture of the company when you grow in size," LaChance said. "(Here) you can see day to day how what you're doing contributes to the company's success. It's a personal choice."

Nitza Basoco worked with LaChance at Broadcom and came over to MaxLinear after a two-week deliberation last year, deciding that although it was a risk she would get the chance to build her own team, get things done more quickly with fewer approvals needed and her work would affect the entire company.

"I made the decision based on personal growth," said Basoco, adding that "cutting through the red tape is very refreshing."

Though growing, from $9.7 million in revenue in 2007 to $71.9 million in revenue in 2011, MaxLinear hasn't been able to turn a profit this year partly because equity in the form of stock options is being doled out to new employees and the expense is eating into the bottom line.

But when you're running a small company, say startup experts, offering a piece of ownership is sometimes the only way to bring someone onboard.

"Startups really try to push the idea of getting involved early, and the reward will come later on," said Cynthia Howard, vice president of development at OCTANe, an organization that helps startups launch in the county. "When everybody is invested in the same pot so if the company succeeds then they succeed – they're going to be a little more driven to make the effort to make it work."

As test development manager, Basoco has four employees working under her and has seen the Irvine offices of MaxLinear expand into a second floor and double to 65 employees. She has high hopes for the company.

"It's a young company, so the (stock options are) a long-term investment, not a short one," Basoco said. "Coming into a smaller company allowed me to have more flexibility ... where you wear a lot of different hats and not just the hat you're being paid for."

Young prospective employees want to have their opinion and knowledge understood and respected, according to Karen Lustman, director of business development for Devon & Devon, an Orange County-based staffing agency, and these people are prepared to wear numerous hats to get the job done.

"When they see they have those stock options, you're suddenly a bigger player in that company no matter what your position is," said Lustman, cautioning that such deals don't always work out.